Thursday, February 24, 2011

BENGHAZI, Libya: The scope of Moammar Gadhafi’s rule in Libya was whittled away Wednesday as major cities and towns closer to the capital fell into the hands of protesters demanding his ouster.
In Libya’s east, now all but broken away, the opposition vowed to “liberate” Tripoli, where the Libyan leader is holed up with a force of militiamen roaming the streets.

In a further sign of Gadhafi’s faltering hold, two air force pilots, one from the leader’s own tribe, parachuted out of their warplane and let it crash into the deserts of eastern Libya, rather than follow orders to bomb a opposition-held city.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said estimates of some 1,000 people killed in the violence were “credible,” although he stressed information about casualties was incomplete.

In Tripoli, Gadhafi’s stronghold, protest organizers were calling for new rallies Thursday and Friday, raising the potential for more bloodshed.
Militiamen and Gadhafi supporters, a mix of Libyans and foreign African fighters bused in, roamed the capital’s main streets, called up by the Libyan leader in a fist-pounding speech the night before in which he vowed to fight to the death.

The gunmen fired weapons in the air, chanting “long live Gadhafi” and waving green flags.
In many neighborhoods, residents set up watch groups to keep militiamen out, barricading their streets with concrete blocks, metal and rocks and searching those trying to enter, said a Tripoli activist.

Gadhafi’s residence at Tripoli’s Aziziya Gates was guarded by loyalists along with a line of armed militiamen in vehicles, some masked, he said. The radio station building downtown was also heavily fortified.
In one western neighborhood, security forces stormed several homes and arrested three or four people, a witnesses said.
“Mercenaries are everywhere with weapons. You can’t open a window or door. Snipers hunt people,” said another resident, who said she had spent the last night in her home hearing gunfire outside. “We are under siege, at the mercy of a man who is not a Muslim.”

But below the surface, protesters were organizing, said the activist. At night, they fan out and spray-paint anti-Gadhafi graffiti or set fires near police stations, chanting “the people want the ouster of the regime,” before running at the approach of militiamen, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
In opposition-controlled Benghazi, residents held a mass rally outside the city’s main courthouse, vowing to support protesters in the capital, said Farag al-Warfali, a local banker. They also called a one-day fast in solidarity with them.
Afterward, young men went into the courthouse to register to obtain weapons, which had been looted from police stations and military bases and then turned over to the city’s new rulers, he said.
The idea is to “take their weapons and march toward Tripoli,” Warfali said, though Benghazi lies 940 kilometers east of the capital, and territory still loyal to Gadhafi lies between them.

The extent of Gadhafi’s control over the country had been reduced to the western coastal region around Tripoli, the deserts to the south and parts of the center.
Ater Gadhafi’s speech Tuesday night, militiamen flooded into Sabratha, a town west of Tripoli famed for nearby ancient Roman ruins, and battled protesters who had taken over, said one resident.

Around 5,000 militiamen from neighboring towns, backed by army and police units, clashed with protesters and drove them from the streets, he said. But his territory was being eroded.

The opposition said it had taken over Misrata, Libya’s third largest city and the closest major population center to Tripoli to fall into protesters’ hands.

Residents honked horns in celebration and raised the pre-Gadhafi flags of the Libyan monarchy, after several days of fighting that drove out militiamen, from the city, about 200 kilometers east of Tripoli, said Faraj al-Misrati, a local doctor.

He said six people had been killed and 200 wounded in clashes that began Feb. 18. Residents had formed committees to clean the streets, protect the city and treat the injured, he said. “The solidarity among the people here is amazing, even the disabled are helping out.”
An audio statement posted on the Internet reportedly from armed forces officers in Misrata proclaimed “our total support” for the protesters.

Protesters were also in control in Zwara, a town about 50 kilometers from the Tunisian border in the west, after local army units sided with the protesters and police fled, said one resident, a 25-year-old unemployed university graduate.

“This man [Gadhafi] has reached the point that he’s saying he will bring armies from Africa [to fight protesters]. That means he is isolated,” he said. Gadhafi long kept his army weak and divided for fear of challenge, so in the fierce crackdown his regime has waged on the uprising, he has relied on militia groups, beefed up by fighters hired abroad.
Meanwhile, army units in many places have sided with protesters.

Wednesday, two air force pilots jumped from parachutes from their Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jet and let it crash, rather than carry out orders to bomb opposition-held Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, the website Qureyna reported, citing an unidentified officer in the air force control room.

One of the pilots, identified by the report as Ali Omar Gadhafi, was from Gadhafi’s tribe, the Gadhadhfa, said Farag al-Maghrabi, a local resident who saw the pilots and the wreckage of the jet, which crashed in a deserted area outside the key oil port of Breqa, about 710 kilometers east of Tripoli.

Protesters and the mutinous army units that have joined them were consolidating their hold on nearly the entire eastern half of the 1,000-mile Mediterranean coastline, stretching from the Egyptian border to Ajdabiya, about 800 kilometers east of Tripoli, encroaching on key oil fields around the Gulf of Sidra. Across their territory, they have been setting up their own jury-rigged self-administrations.

In many places, committees organized by local residents, tribes and mutinous army officers were governing, often collecting weapons looted from pro-Gadhafi troops to prevent chaos. “There is now an operating room for the militaries of all the liberated cities and they are trying to convince the others to join them,” said Lt. Col. Omar Hamza, an army officer who had allied with the protesters in Tobruk. “They are trying to help the people in Tripoli to capture Gadhafi.”
At the Egyptian border, guards had fled, and local tribal elders have formed local committees to take their place. “Welcome to the new Libya,” a graffiti at the crossing proclaimed.

Fawzy Ignashy, a former soldier, now in civilian clothes at the border, said that early in the protests, some commanders ordered troops to fire on protesters, but then tribal leaders stepped in and ordered them to stop. “They did because they were from here. So the officers fled,” he said.

A defense committee of local residents was even guarding one of Gadhafi’s once highly secretive anti-aircraft missile bases outside the city of Tobruk. – AP